Cryptic is happy to announce that Champions Online is going free to play, but the first question in your mind might be "What does this mean for STO players?"

There are no plans to change STO's subscription model.

"You say no plans now, but what about later," you ask?

If I could travel forward in time and then pull a slingshot maneuver to come back and tell you what the future holds for STO, I’d do it. But in the absence of time-travel, Star Trek Online continues as a subscription based game with a ton of updates scheduled for Season 3, 4, and well beyond.

So for now, the announcement doesn’t impact STO. The team remains entirely focused on delivering continuous quality content and developing the features you want to see in the game. The STO Season 3 release and Foundry mission authoring tools are just a month away!

That doesn't mean we’re going to stop watching or talking about what Champs is doing. Champions Online is a really fun game and I personally think this will be an awesome switch for them. We’re big fans of this bold move and I can’t wait to see what an impact it makes.

Now that you've heard all this, I'm interested in what you think. What is your take on all this free-to-play stuff?

My opinion? I don't like Free 2 Play. I feel that it allows for developers to become even more lax since they're not making a steady income. Free 2 Play games already use something like "the C Store" so you already have something very similar to Free 2 Play inside of a MMORPG that has a monthly fee. I don't mind, as long as the "Chapters" and Monthly Content (and now weekly episodes) keep churning out.

I still feel there is a lot to fix (Klingon content, awards for your ship interiors, heck, static ship interiors) I think that Free 2 Play would hurt things and not help things.

Also, yeah I've spent 400+ dollars on STO with a lifetime sub and the different boxes I bought to get pre-order stuff (which went into the C-Store), so I've definately supported this game...

I have conserns... Of cause I do. I am a lifetime supscriber, and as such slightly worried that my invenstment will at any given point go *poof*... Then again, that has been a concern for me since launch, as you never know if a freshly launched game will continue to go on.

In any case longterm payment solutions have just become more interesting

In all seriousness i'd like to point out, that a certain amount of money probably has to be earned off the game, before a F2P solution is even considered on Ataris or Cryptics part, so right no I don't belive theres anything to be worried about.
Though I think this might reflect on lifetime supscriptions in the near future.